I love how stories like this bring out the true looney fringe types. At least one of these posts makes me think of a guy in a wood cabin in a rocking chair polishing his AK and making rude gestures at the door...
Anyway, that said, comment on the story:
The courts seem to be pretty reasonable here. They didn't give a carte blanche, rather they said in basic terms that the police can't magically "unhear" something that is said while executing a listen warrant on someone else.
There may be discussion of the continued listening if they did not get a warrant based on what they had heard. There is a point (that must be decided as a fact of law) where too much was gathered while knowing they were listening to the wrong person.
It's seems to be a pretty fair ruling and lets the lower court back into the game to take a swing at it.
Hey Paul, seriously, fuck off. I have a life, I don't spend my time hiding out from the tax man shivering in front of my computer. Sorry to disappoint you!
"DMCA notices are generally *takedown* notices. They're not "erm, we saw a dodgy link, can you remove it". They're usually "remove this entire page/file or face further action"."
Since a torrent site generally is proving a link to allow people to download the material, it follows that it could be a page with the content on it. That would include the COPYRIGHT image of the box cover that the site happens to use (oh, darn, there is that reality crap again ruining your rant!).
"Whether our usual clown knows this and is playing ignorant, "
So the images on the page are not copyright? The links to the pirated torrents are not invalid?
Come on Paul, stop being a twit. You use to be way smarter in your comebacks, now it's just pure baiting bullshit.
Of course, countries passing laws or adding restrictions on companies to protect local companies from multinationals is an ongoing story here at Techdirt. The whole "EU is being bad to Google" story seems to come up fairly regularly.
If you look at the exceptional cases, you will always find bad. In the same manner that trademarks, copyright, and patents generally work well in most cases, there are extreme cases that do in fact break the system, or twist it to evil ends. You can always find bad, and if you are willing to work from that and that alone, you become the Matt Drudge of tech.
I have other work in life, I don't have time to knock out t-shirts as a one off. You guys outsourced it to a company that will only do runs if you push enough (hence the repeated begging for buyers, otherwise you won't hit the goal and nobody will get them).
I can produce them locally (it's pretty easy) but slightly time consuming. I don't want to spend the time just to prove you wrong. The t-shirts aren't scarce, the printing on the t-shirts isn't scarce, and they aren't particularly special. Artificial scarcity is created by saying "limited time" or "get them before they are gone" when in fact, they are not scarce at all.
If someone wants to order 100 (mixed sizes) I will gladly process an order for them and run the shirts. It's not a big deal. Given distribution, I could run tens of thousands of them. Doesn't matter. The point is that they are not scarce, except if you try to put artificial limits on them (won't do this again!).
If you want to send me the money, I am sure I can knock you out a special shirt, girls small should fit you nicely.
Actually, if you took the time to look, you would notice that the site has links to movie downloads on the lower left hand side of every page. There is the potential that the link to their movie was on that page at the time they pulled it.
I have told you before, I just don't have the time. I can get them turned out as cheap as chips, good quality shorts (beefy Ts or Gildans) but it takes time and I don't really have it.
if you want to pre-order a bunch (say like 100 or more) I will gladly process the order. FOB my town, by the way, so prepare to pay shipping and the boat might take a while to get there...
Univisions lawyers figured out the basic concept that if they left the posts up, they would become liable too.
See, Univision bought the properties but not the liabilities including the legal ones. Those people suing are going after Gawker Media, which is now effectively an empty shell. Univision is NOT part of those lawsuits.
Removing a small number of stories (7, if I understand correctly) from the Univision sites means that they cannot be held liable for them. It's not about giving into people filing lawsuits, it's about getting away from a losing battle that they don't have to be part of.
It's just logical, and has nothing to do with caving in or backing down, just being smart.
Part of the problem here is the person who wrote the article (and the Techdirt writer who copied from it) pretty much moved the goal posts on what is a partial release. Sometimes people ask for stuff that cannot be released without serious redaction (including blanking out all of the 200 pages in question). It's just one of those things.
Now, if the goal post is "the request totally matched everything the person asked for without any redaction", then the 7% figure is quite reasonable. Almost every document will have redactions (such as who wrote it, inspectors or officers involved, etc). Thus the partial count is very high.
If you think 90% is high, perhaps you should just figure out what the goal posts are, rather than complaining that they don't match up to your desire for complete data dumping on request.
Oh, and thanks to the usual Techdirt "censors" for flagging my comment. You should be proud to provide censorship on a site that supposedly fights for freedom of speech!
"Over on the funny side, our top comment is one that pops up frequently whenever we level criticisms at Google (this time, over the Feedburner/Goo.gl link shortening fiasco). JD offered up the classic ironic-faux-troll:"
Calling out Google over something minor while ignoring all the other "not evil" things they do is, well... draw your own conclusions.
I am guessing Automattic is on that list now too... :)
Re: Re: Re: Re: You can hear the arm waving from here...
The problem Paul is that somewhere along the chain, someone almost always makes money from it. The current system of pirate sites, file hosters, and the like all have their potential for commercial exploitation. If you cannot control the entire process (ie, I share via FTP with you, my personal friend, with no middle man involved) then you are likely involved in a commercial transaction.
I don't agree with Mike though - piracy will continue and will be strong, there will just be less desire to make millions of dollars off of it (sorry to KAT, Kimdotcom, and those types)
I agree with you completely. I too was struck by that line in the story, as it draws a conclusion that cannot be drawn by the evidence.
Rather it's much easier to picture a scenario where a number of employees over different locations and such came to the same basic conclusion: Faking it would work. When they had success (ie, the bosses didn't notice and they got their bonuses) they perhaps told some of their friends / co-workers how to do it. The word spreads, and soon a whole bunch of people are doing it.
It's doubtful that the company would teach such a thing directly. However, their goal system and such set up the potential for such abuse, and they had little incentive (beyond perhaps customer satisfaction) to police it.
Concluding that this was a "bank approved plan" is pretty much trying to write the conclusion to match your desires, rather than reality.
"But that's not what this ruling says. If you don't put ads on the site and make no money of it, you're perfectly fine it seems."
Not really. There is always some sort of benefit, even if it's indirect. Running a big pirate site (even an index) takes a heck of a lot of bandwidth, time, and effort. Most people cannot afford to keep paying that out of their pockets forever. They accept donations, they charge a membership fee, or they have links off to their commercials sites. Something as simple as linking to images stored on an image revenue style site could be considered commercial. It's pretty much impossible not to be commercial.
Paul, you only have to look at countries in your area (like say Greece, south of France, Spain, etc) in areas that depend on tourism. It's seasonable, it's generally low paying, and it only drives revenues to the bosses and owners who can live well over the off season. The employees often end up on the dole for half the year... so sad!
" lying about me doesn't help your image"
Only telling as much as the truth that is known...expats commonly flee the UK to avoid crippling taxes.
"I mean, what the hell are you even trying to say here? Are you trying to say that tourism is bad because the jobs it creates are lower end jobs? "
The point is that low end jobs aren't useful if the costs of living go way up. Business owners raise prices, commercial real estate goes up (for all those tourist t-shirt places) and the money flows out of the economy and off to the owners of Real Estate Investment Trusts and the like.
Most tourist only destination aren't rich places.
"You've gone from merely trying to distract from the article or confuse the issue with falsehoods to outright stating nonsense."
Unlike you, I have real work experience beyond avoiding taxes and bitching about people not speaking your language. Perhaps one day you will grow up and start thinking for yourself, but today clearly is not that day.
You can play around with the numbers a bit and make them say anything you want.
If the units are removed from the rental marketplace equally (high price, low price, etc), then the initial effects are negligible. However, the question is the long term effects.
In the long run, if property owners can make more money renting out a unit on AirBNB for a couple of weekend a month and have less hassle for things like collecting rent and doing maintenance, then more of them are likely to head that way.
In cities like New York where new reasonable price rental stock isn't coming to market (mostly higher end stuff) the potential issues of even a few thousand units out of the rental market can be significant. Rental prices may not be affected only because those who can no longer afford just move away, and the remaining market remains steady with slightly less demand to match the slightly less offered property. Think of it as digital era gentrification.
In a property market there are many drivers, and it will always be hard to attribute any change in price to any one thing. It is overblown to blame them singularly, but they may be a long term tipping point in the overall functioning of the rental market.
"Airbnb can provide plenty of other benefits for residents as well -- from alternative revenue sources for homeowners to more tourist dollars coming in to cities."
This is true, but at the same time you have to remember that the tourism business generates a lot of low end jobs, baggage handlers, wait staff, hotel clerks, and so on. They are often WalMart level income jobs which do little to bring prosperity to the community. Tourism is good business for property owners, hotel owners, and the like, but there isn't quite as much trickle down as people would like to think.
Did the game designers use Mario specifically to either get a boost by association, or hoping to get the sort of result they got? it appears to be marketing, plain and simple.
Their original game didn't need Mario. The reference and the use of assets in that manner seems futile and risky, unless of course you are hoping to get a whole bunch of exposure online for the results through sites like Techdirt and Torrent Freak.
Here's the thing: If FBI (or other law enforcement) use a weakness in a system to obtain information about criminals or to prosecute them, I don't see the issue. The weakness exists, and they used it.
In the case of TOR, there are a couple of potential issues that have been out there that they may have exploited. It's not really very much different from going undercover and becoming part of the criminal gang to gather information and move to an arrest.
Does anyone have proof that they broke the rules, or merely exploited a security failure in TOR? Somewhere along the chain of TOR, someone knows the original IP of the user, and someone knows the original IP of the site they are visiting. They have to. It's the weakest points. Taking steps that can exploit that weakness isn't breaking the law, it's using the criminal's own tools against them.
Social contract? Wow, that smacks of desperation, especially when talking about people who hosted and aided drug dealers and worse...
On the post: Court Says 'Plain Hearing' Applies To Wiretaps, But Eavesdropping Must Stop If Target Isn't Actually Using The Targeted Phone
More giggles
Anyway, that said, comment on the story:
The courts seem to be pretty reasonable here. They didn't give a carte blanche, rather they said in basic terms that the police can't magically "unhear" something that is said while executing a listen warrant on someone else.
There may be discussion of the continued listening if they did not get a warrant based on what they had heard. There is a point (that must be decided as a fact of law) where too much was gathered while knowing they were listening to the wrong person.
It's seems to be a pretty fair ruling and lets the lower court back into the game to take a swing at it.
On the post: Another Day, Another Anomaly: Paramount Issues DMCA Takedown On Ubuntu Linux Torrent
Re: Re: Re:
"DMCA notices are generally *takedown* notices. They're not "erm, we saw a dodgy link, can you remove it". They're usually "remove this entire page/file or face further action"."
Since a torrent site generally is proving a link to allow people to download the material, it follows that it could be a page with the content on it. That would include the COPYRIGHT image of the box cover that the site happens to use (oh, darn, there is that reality crap again ruining your rant!).
"Whether our usual clown knows this and is playing ignorant, "
So the images on the page are not copyright? The links to the pirated torrents are not invalid?
Come on Paul, stop being a twit. You use to be way smarter in your comebacks, now it's just pure baiting bullshit.
On the post: More Details On How Corporate Sovereignty Provisions, Like Those In TPP & TTIP, Are Dangerous
If you look at the exceptional cases, you will always find bad. In the same manner that trademarks, copyright, and patents generally work well in most cases, there are extreme cases that do in fact break the system, or twist it to evil ends. You can always find bad, and if you are willing to work from that and that alone, you become the Matt Drudge of tech.
On the post: The Super-Early Holiday Gear Sale (Plus Our New Math Is Not A Crime T-Shirt!)
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I have other work in life, I don't have time to knock out t-shirts as a one off. You guys outsourced it to a company that will only do runs if you push enough (hence the repeated begging for buyers, otherwise you won't hit the goal and nobody will get them).
I can produce them locally (it's pretty easy) but slightly time consuming. I don't want to spend the time just to prove you wrong. The t-shirts aren't scarce, the printing on the t-shirts isn't scarce, and they aren't particularly special. Artificial scarcity is created by saying "limited time" or "get them before they are gone" when in fact, they are not scarce at all.
If someone wants to order 100 (mixed sizes) I will gladly process an order for them and run the shirts. It's not a big deal. Given distribution, I could run tens of thousands of them. Doesn't matter. The point is that they are not scarce, except if you try to put artificial limits on them (won't do this again!).
If you want to send me the money, I am sure I can knock you out a special shirt, girls small should fit you nicely.
On the post: Another Day, Another Anomaly: Paramount Issues DMCA Takedown On Ubuntu Linux Torrent
On the post: The Super-Early Holiday Gear Sale (Plus Our New Math Is Not A Crime T-Shirt!)
Re: Re:
if you want to pre-order a bunch (say like 100 or more) I will gladly process the order. FOB my town, by the way, so prepare to pay shipping and the boat might take a while to get there...
On the post: Univision Execs Have No Backbone: Pull A Bunch Of Gawker Stories Over Legal Disputes
See, Univision bought the properties but not the liabilities including the legal ones. Those people suing are going after Gawker Media, which is now effectively an empty shell. Univision is NOT part of those lawsuits.
Removing a small number of stories (7, if I understand correctly) from the Univision sites means that they cannot be held liable for them. It's not about giving into people filing lawsuits, it's about getting away from a losing battle that they don't have to be part of.
It's just logical, and has nothing to do with caving in or backing down, just being smart.
On the post: The Super-Early Holiday Gear Sale (Plus Our New Math Is Not A Crime T-Shirt!)
Artificial scarcity defined.
On the post: DOJ Proudly Trumpets Its Completely BS 91% FOIA Response Rate
Now, if the goal post is "the request totally matched everything the person asked for without any redaction", then the 7% figure is quite reasonable. Almost every document will have redactions (such as who wrote it, inspectors or officers involved, etc). Thus the partial count is very high.
If you think 90% is high, perhaps you should just figure out what the goal posts are, rather than complaining that they don't match up to your desire for complete data dumping on request.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re:
http://thewire.in/5586/julian-assange-on-google-surveillance-and-predatory-capitalism/
Or you could read the on Quora for some examples and extra links:
https://www.quora.com/What-are-examples-of-Googles-evil-behavior
You know, the basics.
Oh, and thanks to the usual Techdirt "censors" for flagging my comment. You should be proud to provide censorship on a site that supposedly fights for freedom of speech!
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Calling out Google over something minor while ignoring all the other "not evil" things they do is, well... draw your own conclusions.
I am guessing Automattic is on that list now too... :)
On the post: Terrible Ruling: EU Decides That Mere Links Can Be Direct Infringement
Re: Re: Re: Re: You can hear the arm waving from here...
I don't agree with Mike though - piracy will continue and will be strong, there will just be less desire to make millions of dollars off of it (sorry to KAT, Kimdotcom, and those types)
On the post: MPAA Freaks Out In Response To FCC's Revised Set Top Box Plan
By that standard, your t-shirt deal the other day was a nuclear meltdown.
You really should try to keep the hype out of the story titles, it makes you look bad.
On the post: Holy Crap: Wells Fargo Has To Fire 5,300 Employees For Scam Billing
Re:
Rather it's much easier to picture a scenario where a number of employees over different locations and such came to the same basic conclusion: Faking it would work. When they had success (ie, the bosses didn't notice and they got their bonuses) they perhaps told some of their friends / co-workers how to do it. The word spreads, and soon a whole bunch of people are doing it.
It's doubtful that the company would teach such a thing directly. However, their goal system and such set up the potential for such abuse, and they had little incentive (beyond perhaps customer satisfaction) to police it.
Concluding that this was a "bank approved plan" is pretty much trying to write the conclusion to match your desires, rather than reality.
On the post: Terrible Ruling: EU Decides That Mere Links Can Be Direct Infringement
Re: Re: You can hear the arm waving from here...
Not really. There is always some sort of benefit, even if it's indirect. Running a big pirate site (even an index) takes a heck of a lot of bandwidth, time, and effort. Most people cannot afford to keep paying that out of their pockets forever. They accept donations, they charge a membership fee, or they have links off to their commercials sites. Something as simple as linking to images stored on an image revenue style site could be considered commercial. It's pretty much impossible not to be commercial.
On the post: Calm Down, People: Data Shows Airbnb Isn't Really Driving Up Rent
Re: Re: Re: Re:
" lying about me doesn't help your image"
Only telling as much as the truth that is known...expats commonly flee the UK to avoid crippling taxes.
On the post: Calm Down, People: Data Shows Airbnb Isn't Really Driving Up Rent
Re: Re:
The point is that low end jobs aren't useful if the costs of living go way up. Business owners raise prices, commercial real estate goes up (for all those tourist t-shirt places) and the money flows out of the economy and off to the owners of Real Estate Investment Trusts and the like.
Most tourist only destination aren't rich places.
"You've gone from merely trying to distract from the article or confuse the issue with falsehoods to outright stating nonsense."
Unlike you, I have real work experience beyond avoiding taxes and bitching about people not speaking your language. Perhaps one day you will grow up and start thinking for yourself, but today clearly is not that day.
On the post: Calm Down, People: Data Shows Airbnb Isn't Really Driving Up Rent
If the units are removed from the rental marketplace equally (high price, low price, etc), then the initial effects are negligible. However, the question is the long term effects.
In the long run, if property owners can make more money renting out a unit on AirBNB for a couple of weekend a month and have less hassle for things like collecting rent and doing maintenance, then more of them are likely to head that way.
In cities like New York where new reasonable price rental stock isn't coming to market (mostly higher end stuff) the potential issues of even a few thousand units out of the rental market can be significant. Rental prices may not be affected only because those who can no longer afford just move away, and the remaining market remains steady with slightly less demand to match the slightly less offered property. Think of it as digital era gentrification.
In a property market there are many drivers, and it will always be hard to attribute any change in price to any one thing. It is overblown to blame them singularly, but they may be a long term tipping point in the overall functioning of the rental market.
"Airbnb can provide plenty of other benefits for residents as well -- from alternative revenue sources for homeowners to more tourist dollars coming in to cities."
This is true, but at the same time you have to remember that the tourism business generates a lot of low end jobs, baggage handlers, wait staff, hotel clerks, and so on. They are often WalMart level income jobs which do little to bring prosperity to the community. Tourism is good business for property owners, hotel owners, and the like, but there isn't quite as much trickle down as people would like to think.
On the post: Nintendo DMCAs Fan-Game 'No Mario's Sky', Devs Rename It 'DMCA Sky'
Did the game designers use Mario specifically to either get a boost by association, or hoping to get the sort of result they got? it appears to be marketing, plain and simple.
Their original game didn't need Mario. The reference and the use of assets in that manner seems futile and risky, unless of course you are hoping to get a whole bunch of exposure online for the results through sites like Techdirt and Torrent Freak.
I dunno, seems like you guys are getting played!
On the post: ACLU Seeks To Unseal Docket In FBI's Tor-Exploiting Takedown Of Freedom Hosting
Re: Re:
In the case of TOR, there are a couple of potential issues that have been out there that they may have exploited. It's not really very much different from going undercover and becoming part of the criminal gang to gather information and move to an arrest.
Does anyone have proof that they broke the rules, or merely exploited a security failure in TOR? Somewhere along the chain of TOR, someone knows the original IP of the user, and someone knows the original IP of the site they are visiting. They have to. It's the weakest points. Taking steps that can exploit that weakness isn't breaking the law, it's using the criminal's own tools against them.
Social contract? Wow, that smacks of desperation, especially when talking about people who hosted and aided drug dealers and worse...
Next >>